Safely Gathered In
by LittleMender
Summary: He was amazed at his own selfish, insatiable desire to pursue what he wanted. It would take time, and much of the work would be one-sided. But he also knew it would be worth it. And he knew he had to try. Installment #10 in the Holiday/Next Time Series.


**Author's Note A: As I said after the Autumn Equinox installment, it suits my purposes (for this series) for Red John to be dead, killed off as he seemed to be in the show with the following changes: 1)The man Jane shot at the mall was indeed Red John, 2) Jane's trial went according to my plan as laid out by Cho in "No More Illusions", the Prosecution unable to prove murder one beyond a reasonable doubt, 3) The whole thing played out between the September installment and now, and 4) Due to the "next times", Jane and Lisbon's relationship has been developing in a different way than on the show, so her feelings on the matter aren't quite the same.**

**Author's Note B: Cho's quote that begins "God grant me the serenity . . ." is from the Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer.**

**Author's Note C: Thanks so much for sticking with me through this series. This installment is the longest to date, but I wanted to keep to the single chapter format . . . for now.**

**Number 10 in the Holiday/Next Time Series**

_Come, ye thankful people, come  
><em>_Raise the song of harvest home  
><em>_All is safely gathered in  
><em>_Ere the winter storms begin  
>- <em>_From a hymn of Thanksgiving_

SAFELY GATHERED IN

Red John was dead. That was the main thing. It was primary. Prime. Nothing else factored in. Jane had brought the gun with him that day as protection against meeting Red John's mole, who—he had assumed—might be angry at being flushed out from his hiding place. Yes, he had considered the possibility, even hoped for the probability that Red John would also show, knowing that if fate or providence or whatever cosmic power that might exist would grant him that grace he would be ready to exploit it. He had been wrong about the identity of Red John's man, but his surmisings on the man himself had been dead on.

Oscar Ardiles, with the full force of the DA's office behind him, had come out guns blazing in an attempt to make Jane pay to the last letter of the law. He had bullied and threatened and sniveled his way through the farce of a trial, attempting to prove that Jane had committed murder in the first with malice aforethought. In short, he had overshot. Jane had given him every bit of help for which, in exchange, he had asked certain concessions. But in the end, shortsightedness, overzealousness and public opinion had proven an impossible trifecta, and Jane was a free man.

That being the case, he wondered . . ._ Shouldn't it feel differently?_

Jane had thought that if Red John was ended and he had managed to live through it, there would be a _lessening._ He really didn't expect anything to be _added_ to his life. He knew he didn't deserve it and had never considered the possibility that he may come to even want it. Until recently he would have been, frankly, tired of the upkeep. But he had honestly believed that in the event the near impossible had occurred, at least some weight would be lifted. And to _be_ honest, it had been. Only to have another descend in its place.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

He caught himself in time to turn his body slightly just before he slammed into the floor. The last time he had rolled out of the attic bed in an attempt to escape what had enfolded in his nightmare, he hadn't been so quick. Sometimes the back of his head still hurt.

He didn't dream of Angela much anymore—hadn't for months until tonight . . . today. He shook his head to clear it. He had stood—or lain, he wasn't sure—holding her, one arm around her waist, his other hand smoothing through her hair at her temple, curving behind her ear and down to run along her jaw. He had been glad to be there with her, embracing her, but he couldn't revel in the touch. It had been as if someone else was gliding their fingertips across her skin and he had only felt it second-hand. What comfort might have been gleaned from their closeness wasn't his. There had been someone else there too, nearby, a waiting watcher, but he couldn't see her.

Ange had smiled at him, vague and distant, as if the smile really weren't for him. Then, as he watched in slow-motion horror, her smile had widened, stretching her mouth into an unnatural, terrible yawn, and blood—so much blood—had poured out, coating her chin and soaking her sundress. He had tried to push away from her, not wanting the blood to touch him, had felt a strong tug from behind trying to pull him clear. And that's what had sent him over the edge of the makeshift bed and onto the attic floor.

Even though he was now awake, the terror of the dream still wrapped around him, trapping him with slimy cords, and he lay on the floor, taught and trembling, tears stinging his eyes, surprised and a little frightened that the hand from his dream still gripped his shoulder.

"Jane?" The hand gave him a shake. He recognized that voice. _Of course_.

"Jane! What the hell?"

He had learned long ago that those words expressed several emotions for her, among them anger, mirth, irritation, confusion, fear. She had every right to the one, no inclination lately for the next, lived in a perpetual state of the third, and had no reason for the fourth. It was wrong, but it seemed everything he did now was so wrong. He shouldn't be glad she was afraid. _That_ was wrong. But at least fear was something.

She bent down and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him to a sitting position. Straightening her knees, she hoisted upward in an attempt to help him lift himself off of the dust-covered floor. Her fingers dug into his skin almost painfully, and he could feel her breath on his face, warm and panting with her exertions. Heat radiated off of her, and as she worked with him to cantilever him back up onto the plywood bed, she looked directly into his eyes, searching for alertness and reason.

She was so _real_.

And it was the first time she'd touched him since he'd killed Red John.

"What the hell?" she repeated, more quietly this time.

He tried to give her a lop-sided smile, but it came out in a pained grimace. Standing in front of him, she planted her left hand firmly on his shoulder and ran the fingers of her right through his hair, her eyes following their trails, searching for signs of injury. He fought the urge to lean into her touch. Satisfied he hadn't hurt himself, she released him and stepped away.

"You all right?" she asked, eyes now averted awkwardly.

"Bad dream," he replied with a shrug, struggling for nonchalance. Their uneasiness returned him abruptly to reality, and with it, awareness of the day and their work schedule.

"It's Thanksgiving. What are you doing here?"

"We've got a case."

"Case?"

"Yeah. Tahoe." She looked at him uncertainly for a moment. "Well, . . . pull yourself together. It's cold up there, so dig out your pea coat. You've got it here somewhere?"

He nodded dazedly.

"We're leaving in ten."

She spun around and headed out the door, leaving him to right himself. It would take more than the time she had allotted. His mind went back to the dream. For the first few years after their deaths, he had rarely permitted himself to remember Angela and Charlotte, living in a constant state of missing them but only specifically recalling them when some outside impetus set him off. Not thinking on them—their loveliness and goodness and their being solely responsible for bringing those things into his shadowy existence—hadn't only been a part of his self-imposed punishment. Not allowing the feelings those sweet memories would evoke, he knew, helped fan the flames of guilt in which revenge was forged. Conversely, when the memories did manage to break through, they were unfailingly perfect, hazy and dreamy edged, giving a hallowed sheen to what had been the reality.

While Jane felt satisfaction at ending Red John's life, the release he had anticipated had not come. But more honest memories had. Angela, her voice raised, so contrary to her nature, pleading with him to get out of the business, begging, demanding, accusing.

"_You said it was over!"_

"_You promised we'd never have to live like that again."_

"_I don't want Charlotte growing up in this."_

"_You're just like your father!"_

He knew that was one of the reasons for the turn his dreams had taken into a different kind of morbidity. In a way, he had already been losing her. She would always love him in spite of himself—of that he had no doubt. And the idea of leaving him would never cross her mind—something he had taken for granted until it was too late. But he was well aware that there were many times she didn't like him and hated what he was. It was one of the reasons he'd starting working with the police in the first place. Ange had been pleased that although he wasn't being honest about his abilities, he was at least using them for a better, less self-serving purpose. She had been so hopeful that he was indeed willing to change and leave the charlatan behind, and things had been good for a while—very good, actually. But he had known his ability to placate her would only last so long before she realized his work with law enforcement was merely a means to enhance his show business appeal.

He took a deep breath and stood, pausing just long enough to steady himself before heading for the stairs. He didn't want Lisbon on his back right now or worse yet, for her to send someone else to deal with him. She had been angry with him for weeks—as had been his only right to expect—even though it was largely through her efforts, along with the team, that he had been acquitted. She didn't seem to ever talk to him directly, only giving orders _at_ him. And she never looked at him unless duty demanded. He had, of course, retaliated with his usual belligerent contrariness, acting the ass, pushing her, defying her, anything to keep her angry so that she wouldn't slip back into that damnable indifference she'd exhibited in the early days of the investigation and trial, even as she was working to get him cleared. He was painfully aware that there was still _so much_ he had taken for granted.

As a result, she was distant, withholding from him the parts of her he valued most, trying to rebuild that part of her life he had inhabited, separate from him even though she was obligated to see him every day. By nature, she was a force near impossible to withstand, righteous and faithful to her self-imposed code. But _his_ nature was selfish and weak, and the pain of this conjoined separation was the weight he now bore.

Downstairs the unit separated, Lisbon riding with Cho as was her new habit—distance now their routine—and Jane accompanying Rigsby and Van Pelt. Between Rigsby's sympathy for him, Van Pelt's dark and quiet tolerance and his own chronic silence, they really didn't mind. Overall, they were thankful for the chance to be doing something. Still in the early stages of an uneasy healing, none of them were comfortable any longer with the quietude of a holiday.

Forced by circumstances and his own aversion to emotional discussions, Cho had watched the others dully take their places in the other vehicle before dropping into the driver's seat next to his boss, another now usual behavior and evidence of something deeply wrong in the unit. He turned the key and looked over his left shoulder before vacating the close parking space, glad to be able to hide his pained frown from the passenger side as he maneuvered their car into point position. But outside the Sacramento city limits and approximately one quarter into the two-hour ride, he slowed the vehicle and lowered the driver's side window to signal Rigsby to take the lead, ignoring Lisbon's indignant questions as they watched the SUV pass and speedily leave them behind. He was a patient man, but enough had finally proven to be more than enough, and Cho found it suddenly impossible to keep the resentment and anger that was weeks in building tamped down any longer.

"How long are you going to let this go on, Lisbon?"

He rarely called her anything but Boss to her face, and that plus his tone pulled her mind from her own cold thoughts and her gaze from the passing unnoticed scenery.

"Let what go on?"

"All of it." He sighed through his nose, clipped with irritation that she was going to make him spell it out even when she knew what he was talking about. He hated wasting words.

"This . . . stupid . . ." Well, you couldn't waste words you didn't have.

"You're going to have to give me more than that."

Her attempt at humor was inappropriately flippant and annoying as hell, but it served to loosen his tongue.

"Rigsby doesn't know which end is up, can't talk to you. Van Pelt's not herself, _won't_ be herself, _ever_ maybe. And Jane . . . We're going to hell, falling apart. And you're either too pissed to notice, or you just don't give a damn."

"And you, Cho? What about you?" It was an _et tu_, both challenge and plea.

"I've never had to deal with not respecting you before."

She turned away from him to face the passenger window, hoping he didn't see the sudden silent spasms of her chest. She felt the stinging in her eyes and willed herself not to cry at the sharp pain his unexpected words had caused. It hurt worse because she knew he was right. She just didn't know what to do about it.

"Cho, you know we don't—"

"If you say one word about not 'doing personal' at work, I swear I'll pull the car over and make you talk until you say something worth hearing."

And she knew he was just the person to do it.

"What do you want me to say?"

Her voice was small, and he sighed again, longer this time. He took a minute to gather his thoughts, needlessly checking his rear and side-view mirrors. He really didn't want to hurt her, but damn it . . .

"I want you to tell me it can be fixed." She heard his meaning. _Tell me __we__ can be fixed_.

She reached across and laid her hand on his forearm.

"Cho, " she began softly.

Something about her placating tone made him angry again, and he shook her touch away.

"Damn it, Lisbon! Nearly ten years I've worked for you—with you. I've never asked for a thing, never questioned you. Even when I knew I had the right to do both. Even when I knew you were wrong. Why can't you just once be _human_?"

He knew she would've seen reason, would've caved with those first few reminders. But those last words, unfair he knew but desperation-fueled, were like the stone rolling over the grave. He felt her eyes narrow at him, heard the harsh breath.

"How dare you talk to me like that."

"Someone's got to, and I'm the only one whose head isn't up your ass."

She winced at the familiar words. They had been her own, spoken to Jane on Valentine's Day. _Where had all of those times gone?_ She swallowed gall at the thought.

"Pull over." She just wanted out of the car.

"There's no place—"

"I _said_ pull over," came out through tightly clenched teeth.

He caught the movement of her hand at the door handle in his peripheral vision and feared she meant to pull the lever whether he stopped or not. He jerked the wheel, careening the car onto the rough and narrow shoulder of the two-lane. Just before he managed to bring the vehicle to a stop, she was out, teetering violently to gain her balance before striding away across the flat landscape. Cho was glad he'd spoken up before they got into the foothills already visible in the distance.

He exited the car knowing she was angry enough to fire him, shoot him, transfer him. Didn't matter. He had counted the cost before he started this, and he would see it through.

"You can't keep walking away," he shouted, following hard after her.

"Watch me!" she spat back.

At that he took off at a run, willing to tackle her if that's what it took. She sensed his intentions and rounded on him, controlling how far they went, how close he got.

"What do you want me to do? Make everything better? Make everything work? _Fix_ everything? _Everybody?_ Clean up the mess? Just once, _just once_, I want somebody else to do the repair job. I don't even know how to fix this."

The last words came out on a dry sob.

"Forgive him."

It was said quietly, but it may as well have been shouted, ugly and terse, for the physical revulsion it caused in her.

"For_give_ him? How can I? How can _you_? He used us, gulled us, conned us all. And we were all so willing, playing along with his parlor tricks. At least now we know what he was smiling about, lying on his couch."

"Is _that_ what this is about for you? Your _pride_? I thought we were family. Family that knew each other even though we never talked. Family that cared even though we didn't do personal. That's what you said. Guess Jane wasn't the only con."

"He was never one of us."

"God, Lisbon, what is _wrong_ with you?" His hands were at his waist now, and he glared at her.

"What?" she sulked back.

"Are you that stupid or that blind or that _nuts_?"

"You're pushing a dangerous envelope, Cho. You're my friend, but—"

"You seem to be able to remedy that easily enough," he cut at her, not caring when she flinched. She was still sulking, and he knew this wasn't getting them anywhere, and any calm would have to come from him.

"You know, 'To err is human; to forgive, divine.'" He knew appealing to her sense of the religious was a gamble, but he was willing to risk anything now.

"Let somebody else play God," she grumbled.

He bent his head and lifted one hand to rub at the furrow between his eyebrows. "Lisbon," he sighed heavily. The irony that he had watched the woman standing in front of him react in the same way to the man in question hundreds of times over the years did not escape him. She remained silent, and when he looked up at her, the weirdly stricken but amused expression she wore told him the same thought had crossed her mind. Emboldened by it he pressed on.

"'Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds'?"

"There's no love lost." A lesser agent would have missed the slight tremble.

"'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change—'"

"I think we're past that." Her voice was flat and ragged, and he knew this was very dangerous territory.

"'—courage to change the things I can—'"

"I should've been praying for the wisdom to know the difference. Thanks, Cho. That makes it all better. All of these years it was my fault for not praying for the right thing." Lowering her voice, she muttered to herself, "Guess I should've been sharpening his damn knife for him."

"Stupid it is."

"What?"

"If you were blind to it, you wouldn't have the know-how to be sarcastic. If you were nuts it would be funnier. So that leaves—"

"Watch it," she said in her best mother hen.

"Look." One hand still rested at his waist, the other extended out to her. "Just talk to him."

"I did talk to him. For years."

"Then listen to him."

"I've heard it all before."

"I don't think you were listening."

"Cho—" Now it was her turn to plead.

"Haven't you wondered why the D.A. didn't go after you harder?"

She frowned and blinked hard at his sudden shift in topic. "What?"

"The D.A. He asked you about the plan, flushing out the mole, the set-up at the Pacific Palms, the meeting with Bertram, if Red John being at the mall was ever considered or discussed."

"Ye-es," she drew the word out, wondering where he was going.

"He didn't ask you about Hightower, why you were guarding a wanted felon, why we were helping, why we were all on suspension after the shooting. Didn't ask what you knew about Jane's intentions. Didn't ask you about your relationship with Jane—" he knew as the words came out that he shouldn't have phrased it that way, but he ignored the sharp hiss of her inhalation and went on. "—didn't push Van Pelt about O'Laughlin or ask what Rigsby or I knew about any of it. Didn't you wonder why the D.A. took it so easy on all of us?"

"We were doing our job."

His look of exasperation was so like Jane's that she almost laughed in anguished relief.

"Jane bargained for us. Told Ardiles he'd give him everything, that he wouldn't fight admission of any and all evidence if he'd just stick to what was directly germane to the case and not go after any of us. He gave the guy cart blanche in everything else."

"And he still got off," she smirked bitterly.

"He was innocent."

"No, he wasn't."

"He was acquitted."

"On a technicality."

"Of the charges." He shifted his weight with the change in tack. "Look, Lisbon, in any other case you'd be the one telling the rest of us that we had to accept the jury's decision, that the system had worked and the court had done its job. Why is this case any different?"

The words rushed out of her. "Because this one was . . ." She wasn't quite sure how to finish it.

"Personal?"

His wry quirk of the one eyebrow both amused and irritated her. On a good day, she could've beaten him at this game. She had learned the strategy of give and take from a variety of people. It was one she had perfected over the years. Sometimes it was fun, and sometimes it left an ugly wound. But she hadn't had a good day in a while, and she was very tired.

"You think talking to him will make everything better."

"I think it's a start."

"It may not be like it was before."

"It probably won't be."

"It won't work, Cho. I . . . I don't think it will turn out the way you want. I don't think he's what you think he is."

"It can't hurt to try."

_If only you knew._

"I don't want to do it."

"Tough."

She smiled at him almost coyly, and hope bloomed in him, lifting one side of his own mouth in an answering half-smile—she looked so much like her old self. Whether she was unable to resist or just wasn't aware of her movements until it was too late she couldn't have said, but she suddenly stepped closer to him and raised her hand to his cheek, tracing the dimple there. As if in response, the other dimple appeared.

"Are we gonna hug now?"

"You wish," she snorted then patted his cheek once none too gently before walking past him.

"Let's go find a killer," she said, a mix of Chicago and cowboy coloring her tone.

"Yes, ma'am," was his easy answer.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

But of course, it wasn't easy at all. Lauren Carver, nineteen, had been found in a snow-filled ravine in the mountains above Lake Tahoe. Her extended family—parents, sister, two uncles, three aunts and five cousins—had gone for their annual early-season ski trip, and Lauren had been reported missing on the third day. Her sister said she had snuck out in the night to meet a secret someone, so secret even the close sister didn't know his identity. In the morning, the girl had not returned and wasn't answering her harried sibling's calls, and the sister had been forced to come clean to her parents, her worry overshadowing any guilty reticence.

Lisbon was uneasy and suspicious that all family members had remained at the lodge in anticipation of the unit's arrival with the exception of Lauren's step-uncle, Everett Dunlap. He alone had braved the slopes in what seemed either a cold attempt to salvage what was left of the ruined ski trip or to escape the inevitable. At any rate, Lisbon decided he would need that combination of kid-gloves and gloves-off that had once worked so well.

Mindful of her promise to Cho, she moved to the car for the twenty-minute drive to the slopes Mr. Dunlap had opted to try that day, calling over her shoulder for Jane to accompany her and the rest of the team to follow in the SUV after they'd set up a temporary command post. She heard his hurried steps in the snow behind her, crunching in the rush to catch up, and felt the tightness in her chest that had become her constant companion swell into what felt like some sort of blockage.

Her thoughts in the car before the confrontation with Cho had been on what filled them almost constantly now. She found her mind wandering to the same place over and over, during interrogations, as she poured over files and when she stared unseeing at her computer. Her heart-mind remembered Jane's eyes alight with laughter and fireworks, his voice warm with concern for her hurts, his dancing embrace. But logic's cold water tempered the soft feelings those memories engendered with the harsh reality that Jane had done very nearly exactly as he had told her he would do, had gotten nearly exactly what he had been after all of these years, and she had both helped him and been powerless to stop him. It galled her that, injured as she was, she had made the call that had led him straight to his nemesis and the most prominent memories she had of him now: Jane behind bars in a prison-issue jumpsuit, at the defendant's table in court wearing his three-piece and that damnable expression of bland impassivity, back on the job, a few weeks in jail the only payment exacted for willfully killing a man. In her cop's heart, she knew this was all the law required. But Jane had committed other crimes, soft and silent trespasses for which there could be no remuneration. And in her woman's heart, she knew that's what she couldn't seem to let go of.

But Cho was right. They worked together, and so they had to _work together_. She knew the team was faltering, and while she didn't believe it was all her fault, she did know that making it right would fall solely to her. And make it right she would. She could go back to when Jane's ability to close cases like a fiend was the only reason she kept him around. Before she wanted him around. Before she had come to look forward to spending time with him. Before walking in the room and seeing him lying on the leather couch had come to actually, physically hurt. But while the spirit was willing, the flesh didn't know what to say, didn't even know what it wanted to say. The weight of it had her dragging herself into the car, struggling against the resistance of her seat belt and the key turning in the ignition. She never considered the possibility that Jane would make the first move.

"Is this it?"

"What?"

"The showdown. High noon. The moment of truth."

She looked straight ahead, intent on the wandering, pitted road.

"I'm assuming Cho got to you. Is this it? St. Teresa's going to make a miracle?"

She knew he was baiting her, but even for him that was too much too soon.

"And if it is?"

"Let's hear it then."

"Jane," she sighed his name in exasperation. "I just want us to work together, to get the job done. And it's only a twenty-minute drive."

"Then pull over."

"Now's not the time—"

"It's a perfect time. Out here." He motioned toward the scenery. "The middle of nowhere. No witnesses."

"I don't want to do this now."

"What's the matter, Lisbon? Afraid I'll break your heart again?"

That did it.

She pulled the car over and threw the gear so quickly the engine ground into "park". Then she was out, slamming her door and striding across the new layer of powder, pursued by a man at the side of the road for the second time in a little more than as many hours. Jane followed hard after. Angry, Lisbon had never been able to maintain cold silence for this long. Now, heated in her ire, she would talk. It would be hard, and he may not have anywhere to go afterward, but she would be able to say what she felt, would be able to let it out so the team could come back together. Oh, they could function without her, continue solving crimes and putting the bad guys away, even with Rigsby's uncertainty, Van Pelt's altered emotionality and Cho's veiled anger. But without Lisbon—or with her as she was, cold and detached—the team had lost its heart, and he would face any consequences to get it back.

He didn't need to say anything. He had her primed and just had to wait for her to blow. It was the only thing he could do for her now. But when she suddenly stopped several yards from the road, standing in the few inches of snow, her harsh breaths puffing in the air and wafting away on the frigid breeze, and said nothing, Jane had no idea what to do next.

"Well?" He tried a simple prompt.

"Well, what?"

"Don't you have something to say?"

"You _insufferable_ . . . this was your idea."

"I've done all my talking. You never listened."

"Pot, kettle."

He would've smiled over the old joke, but he had heard the bitter resignation in her voice. This isn't what he had wanted, wasn't what she needed.

"Just let it out, Lisbon."

"Let what out?"

She knew he was making that face, the one where he tucked his chin and pinched his lips together in a tight line. It was the same face Cho had given her earlier that morning.

"Tell me how angry you are. Tell me how wrong I was. Tell me I shouldn't have killed him."

"I said all of that before."

"Yes. And I didn't listen."

"Apparently you did."

"But I didn't heed."

"You didn't care."

It was said so quietly. Still, it was like a slap in the face.

"I did. I wanted you to know. I wanted you to be prepared—"

"For your killing a man? For your trial and perhaps your imprisonment and execution?"

"I was acquitted."

"Bully for you, Jane. Bully for you."

He didn't understand her at all. Over the years he had played her dozens of times, maybe hundreds. But when it really counted, she always refused to be conned. Why couldn't she just yell at him?

"Lisbon, if you could say anything to me right now, what would that be? If you could tell me something and know it would never leave this hillside, what would you say?"

She gave no answer, so he tried a different tack.

"Or if there were anything you wish you could have said . . . before."

She lowered her head, and he knew she would answer.

"I would tell you that killing a person changes you. That it takes something from you that you can't ever get back. You had already lost so much . . ."

She still wasn't looking at him, and he was glad of it. He had always thought she meant to make him do right, meant to make him follow the rules, and that higher, nobler part of her had wanted to save him from his folly. He never considered that she had wanted to spare him the consequences to his own deeper self.

"It's hard enough when you kill because you have to, when they don't give you a choice. But when you've thought about it, planned it over years . . . You told me a while back that the cells in the human body regenerate every seven years, that I wasn't the same person I was when you and I first started working together. I guess you're not the same either."

"What do you mean?" The question was out before he thought. He was almost positive he didn't want an answer.

"Before you—before Red John's death, you were colder. Harsher. You smiled more often, but it was hard, brittle . . . almost . . . ghoulish. You seemed more pleasant, but you were meaner. And now you're different again, a different you. You're more closed off. When you first came to the CBI, you were more openly angry then, but at least it was honest."

"I've been more honest with you in the past few months, Lisbon. In the past year even and especially in these last few weeks."

"Not honest, Jane. There isn't anything left for you to lie about. There's a difference."

He was willing to admit, if only to himself, that he might be in over his head. He had become expert in reading her over the years. It really hadn't even taken that long. He hadn't worked with her a full two weeks before he'd learned how to push her buttons, every one of them. But hers had been a lifelong study in dealing with destructive and injurious men—men she couldn't trust anymore. They had practically made her into the woman she was: an expert in people she could expect to cause her pain. And the last seven years she had been nearly all his. Even now, with that damning thought, he couldn't resist being an ass.

"Let's just take this from the top, shall we?"

Her shoulders slumped momentarily before she inhaled deeply and drew herself up straight. He had seen her face Minelli in like manner when he'd suggested she had a less than professional relationship with her consultant and Bosco when he had all but accused her of shooting William McTeer. He had the sick feeling she'd faced her father the same way.

"I told you I would kill Red John. Right?"

"Yes. And how was that?"

He inhaled a clipped breath, sharp in his throat and chest, not altogether from the cold.

"It wasn't exactly the way you planned, was it? You didn't get to 'cut him up and watch him die slowly.'"

They had been his words, but hearing them come from her mouth sounded so wrong, and as she went on, still not looking at him, the more wrong it became.

"Did it hurt that you didn't get to use a knife? That you couldn't feel his last breath on your skin, the last beats of his heart against the steel? Does it haunt you that he died too quickly? That maybe he didn't feel enough, wasn't afraid enough, that he got off too easily?"

He blinked erratically at her. She was so cool, so detached. Professional even. He had given thought to just those questions in the first few days after his arrest, but he had reasoned that Red John was dead and by his hand and had been willing to be satisfied. As usual, she was running a few steps behind him in his thought process, and he could afford to be a little smug with her. But then she turned to look at him over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed in something like contempt, her voice a quiet sting.

"But no. You didn't care about any of that when it was all said and done, did you. He was dead. You got what you wanted and a get-out-of-jail-free card besides. No hassles, no worries. And here, I was so concerned. For what? It didn't change you, and you didn't lose a thing. Even got a little something back, I bet."

She turned to face him straight on, and she _was_ angry now—seething. But not like she usually was, not the way he'd counted on with righteous Lisbon anger. She was smiling, just the way she'd described the same expression on him: hard, brittle and ghoulish. Cold and mean. Sadistic. Everything he'd told Todd Johnson you had to keep hidden. A perfect mirror image of his own heart, smiling back at him, with Lisbon's face.

"Tell me Jane. Did it make everything _better_?"

He hadn't known what the consequences would be for him, but now he wished he'd had a better grasp of what his killing Red John would do to Lisbon.

"I'm glad he's dead."

"Well, here's to your happiness."

"Stop that."

"Stop what, Jane? Isn't this what you wanted? You wanted me to understand. Well, believe me, I do. This is me, understanding. Comprehending. Facing the facts. Embracing the reality. Completely sympatico."

"No, that's not what this is." She was bluffing, and he would call her on it. "You're angry, and this is payback," he said, his voice rising in the heat of his own temper now. "You're angry that I didn't listen to you."

"Angry? I was _helping_ you all these years, remember, Jane? How could I be angry at you?"

"You weren't helping me _kill_ him. Find him, yes. Catch him. But the killing was mine. You were never part of that. I just used you—"

He stopped and swallowed hard at what he'd just admitted and watched the smile slide off her face.

"Yes. Exactly."

She looked away from him and sighed heavily. Her shoulders crumpled under an unseen weight, and he felt a physical pain at the knowledge he had broken something in her. But she had known. He had told her, several times. This shouldn't have been a shock, shouldn't even have been a surprise. He had been a cold bastard, he knew; had used her, yes, but had made her his partner as well. He had known what killing Red John would do to their friendship on the off-chance he survived, and he knew it might be better for everyone involved if he walked away, but what was true for the past seven years was still true: there was nowhere else for him to go, nothing else for him to do. Well, honestly, yes, there was. He could work for law enforcement somewhere else, could work for the government in some other capacity, knew he could even work in the corporate world. There were plenty of people, powerful and wealthy, who would be glad to avail themselves of his abilities. The sad, selfish truth was he didn't want to leave. As bad as this was, he couldn't walk away from it. And angry as she might be, for some reason, Lisbon couldn't send him away.

He looked at her, taking in her vulnerability and brittleness and knew there was nothing he could do. She had had her reasons for not trusting him, not giving him that which he had craved once for the sake of his own murderous ambition and later for the sake of the woman herself, and his actions had given her suspicions ground. The hopelessness of it astounded him. For the first time in his life, there was no smooth argument, no tender plea, no winning smile, no beguiling charm he could exercise to turn this hand to his favor. There would be no winning her back.

She couldn't tell what he was thinking. Even if she could have read his expressions, his mind was working too quickly for her to have been able to keep up. The silence was too uncomfortable, and though she didn't want to explain and would far rather accost a belligerent witness, she decided to tell him what was in her mind if not in her heart.

"I knew from the first second I laid eyes on you what you were. Down deep I even think I knew what you were after. I knew you would discount the rules, you would discount the system. Knew you'd even discount the law. I just came to hope—" She broke off, and to his horror her eyes suddenly swam with tears, but she continued. "I hoped you wouldn't discount us."

"Us?" His voice broke on the word.

"The team—us," she clarified, unwilling to allow even contemplation that she'd had any other meaning. "Now I can be certain."

He stood and watched her, transfixed. A sudden memory of Charlotte swimming in the pool came to him, approaching him underwater where he stood waist-deep, her eyes wide and blinking up at him, distorted by the film of clear fluid. That's what Lisbon's eyes looked like, wide—but unsmiling. The woman was a monument to control. Her eyes were full but not a single tear made its way down her cheek.

"Certain of what?"

"That I didn't matter. None of us did. Not really."

He was stunned. He had done so much to try and protect her. From everything. "How can you think that?"

She refused to look at him, afraid of what she would see. She had learned over the years to see the truth in him when he spoke it, in silent pleading and uncertainty or feigned nonchalance. That's where his tells were—in truth, not in polished and practiced lies. She couldn't bear it if his gaze now was clear and direct, proof that he was once again manipulating her or worse yet, her feelings for him. She sighed at Cho's naiveté and promised herself she would never enlighten him on this particular matter. Let him think it was her fault. In a little while Jane would be gone, and it wouldn't matter anymore. For now they needed to get back on the road, so she made to walk past him and head back to the car. But she had sparked something in him, and he wouldn't let this go now. He grabbed her upper arm and swung her back to him, her surprise at his movements making her momentarily compliant.

"I asked you a question," he growled almost menacingly. Her expression remained passive, and in the silence he realized he held her by both arms, close to him but not touching, nearly pulling her up onto her toes. He knew her shoulder still gave her trouble sometimes, and he swore at himself at the thought that he might be causing her physical pain. Guilt softened him. Loosening his hold so she could stand flat footed, he let his right hand slide up to her shoulder, his thumb rubbing lightly over her shirt against the higher bullet wound.

"It started out like that," he said watching the movement of his thumb, circles and figure eights. "But at some point, I came to . . . Of course, you matter, Lisbon. It's just that-"

Her hand moved up and to the side, sweeping his hand and his words away. "Don't trouble yourself, Jane."

She looked away from him but didn't move to put any distance between them. Her bottom lip tucked in under the soft overbite for a moment then her entire face reformed into the professional mask she used with outsiders.

"Well, Cho said we should talk, and so we have. And now we've got a job to do."

She walked away, and he watched her, the realization of the truth of the matter hitting him with such sudden emotional force that he visibly shuddered.

Those times, all of those bloody "next times" that had become the only things he planned for and looked forward to, that left him lonely and bereft of her presence when she went home for the night, his arms achingly empty when a dance had ended, his afternoon bleak when she wasn't there laughing up at him or scowling or pouting at him, all of those feelings he had found it so necessary to rein in and tamp down, Lisbon had felt too. And while the pleasure of those times made the loss of them doubly painful for him now, he knew her own deep hurt was compounded by the notion that each of those moments had merely served as part of his ruse to draw her in and dupe her into helping him achieve his bloody goal. And then he had killed Red John and—as far as she knew—forgotten her. He wanted to tell her the truth of the matter, but understood why she wouldn't want to listen. After more than seven years, she must be exhausted by the routine of it. But he knew that Lisbon had enough life under her belt to know words were just words.

A different train of thought crossed his mind, and he was amazed at his own selfishness, his inability to not use every ounce of his considerable intellect and effort to pursue what he wanted. While his own brand of realism disallowed the hope that they could ever go back to what they'd had before, he did consider the possibility that he might at least be able to clear the wreckage he had manufactured so they could rebuild a new relationship, hopefully melding with some of the old. It would take time, and he knew that much if not all of the work would be one-sided. But he also knew if it could be done it would be worth it. And he knew he had to try.

And so, with that resolve, Patrick Jane did the only thing he could do in such a dire situation.

He fell off of a mountain.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

"So Everett, when did your niece decide she wouldn't have sex with you anymore?"

They had found the step-uncle on a mountainside bluff halfway up the slopes above Wade Creek, a pretty stream that flowed from west to east to empty into the California side of Lake Tahoe. An early snowfall followed by a three-day warming trend before the most recent dusting of the nearby mountains had swelled the little waterway to well outside its usual bounds, a sudden vicious cold snap icing the top.

The punch shouldn't have been unexpected, but it happened so fast and with such force that before Jane could dodge or Lisbon could grab him, he pitched backward down the steep incline. As soon as his feet left the dirt, Lisbon had been at the edge, helpless at first to do anything but watch him fall. But almost immediately, fear and instinct kicked in, fueled by adrenaline, and without thought she stepped over the edge and began skittering down the rocky, patch-thicketed surface, barely registering the sound of the other vehicle arriving behind her.

She watched him go down, rolling and bumping along the unforgiving surface, looking away only to find purchase for her own descent. She wouldn't be able to help him if she ended up up-ended herself. He hit the narrow solid rock lip at the base of the hill with one last sickening thud then pitched into the ice-covered water, and Lisbon nearly choked on her scream.

She reached the same rock shelf only seconds after and caught sight of the hole in the ice, cracks radiating out from it like a sun. But the flow had taken him, and he was gone. Movement to her right caught her eye, and she saw him just beneath the solid shell that covered the rushing current. Running along the edge, trusting her agents were making calls and every other effort from above, she followed his terrifying progress, running along the lip as it skirted the water's edge.

She heard rocks shifting and falling above her and then behind her.

"Can you see him?" She had never heard Cho's voice sound like that, the note of abject fear raising the pitch to what was, for him, a near shriek.

She jumped across the gap where rock ledge gave way to pebbled bank, all of her energy and thought concentrated on following the bumping against the ice of golden hair, a brown shoe, a splayed hand. Yes, she could see him, but how—O, _God_, how was she to get to him?

As if in answer to her seeking prayer, when she rounded the bend a felled tree came into view, a skeleton of tangled limbs lying on its side in the water having fallen when the ice was still thin and now half-submerged. She saw the blonde hair again bump against the ice and hold, the branches binding him in place. She was able to run out along the tree's trunk until she stood just over him. Rigsby and Van Pelt were coming down now, rock pelting, feet scrabbling, voices yelling behind her.

She looked back and forth, her eyes flitting along the top of the ice even as Jane was held trapped in place beneath it, her thoughts an unbroken litany of "how". The mix of Divine and Instinct kicked in again, and she grasped hold of the tool most familiar to her. Drawing her weapon, she fired into the ice, shots landing in a loose circle around him then jumped to the edge of the perforation, her sudden weight driving into the forming fissures with a resounding crack. She had just enough time to slide back onto the secure unbroken surface before twisting and rolling to her stomach and reaching into the icy black to grab hold of him. As she made contact, latching onto some piece of his clothing, she felt a hand circle and take hold of her ankle. Knowing further back two more links joined to form the chain, she had the fleeting thought that she hoped they had thought to make Rigsby the anchor.

In the end, it was Van Pelt who had pulled them all in from the shore, every ounce of fear and courage giving her the strength to drag them hand over hand, up calf, thigh, hip, waist, back, shoulders, extended aching arms, moving through the sequence three times, the last effort a desperate heave. Lisbon pulled Jane's body off of the ice by laying hers back on the bank and dragging him up to rest atop her chest. He was frozen and unmoving.

More rocks pelting, more scrabbling, but now more sure footed as the incline had eased and emergency personnel were surrounding them. Jane was hefted up the side of the hill on a collapsed gurney, handed up—again—by human chain. Cho hauled Lisbon up from the rocky bank, his adrenaline apparently not yet exhausted, and pushed-dragged her up the hill just in time to see Jane trundled into an ambulance that pulled away, sirens blaring, before the door was even completely closed, the warmed saline already dripping into his veins.

"We . . . have . . . to get—" she panted.

"I know!" Cho shouted, still push-dragging her to the sheriff's car Rigsby had commandeered.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

The whispering was really getting on his nerves. He tried to open his eyes, but they hurt. Everything hurt, and his body let out a groan. The door must have opened because he could sense bright light spilling into the dark room.

"Well, are we finally waking up?" The nurse sang as she stepped to his bed, making clicking noises somewhere near his head. Vaguely, he wondered if the nurse had been awakened from a nap to come and tend to him. He'd have to ask Lisbon about that later. A band tightened on his arm and something plastic-y invaded his mouth, both causing discomfort that forced another groan from him.

"Are we in pain?" the nurse clucked sympathetically.

_I don't know about you, but I hurt like hell._ He groaned again. The nurse tugged then pushed something at his I-V before she pronounced a triumphant "There!" and left, telling somebody _it_ would take a few minutes to kick in . . . whatever _it_ was.

Light spilled across his feet again, the whispering stopped and the nurse must have gone back to her nap. A warm, soft hand slid into his and hazelnut breath fluttered across his chin, mouth and nose.

"If you ever do that again, I will strangle you."

_Ah, I know that voice._ And suddenly he found his own.

A lazy smile spread across his face and, eyes still closed, and he murmured, "Lisbon, coming from you, that's practically a declaration of love."

She said something grumpy in reply, but the wavelengths of it didn't register in his brain. He didn't let it trouble him too much. The part that gave him words was working just fine.

"You know, in many ancient cultures, when one person saves another person's life, the sav-ee belongs to the sav-er until death or the debt is repaid."

"You saved me once. A long time ago." She didn't sound grumpy anymore. In fact, she sounded warm and . . . nice.

He smiled that broad, lazy smile again, eyes still closed, and slid his hand to the outside of hers, never losing contact, and began to stroke his thumb back and forth across her knuckles.

"Mm-hm."

"The debt's paid."

"Yours, not mine. You've saved me about a dozen times since then, in a who-o-ole lotta ways. Guess I'm owned," he crooned contentedly. _It_ was kicking in.

"Possessed is more like it, but not by me." She wasn't going to give in easily, he could tell.

"Only by you. Only yours," he whispered.

"Will you stop saying things that . . . _mean _something?" She was pleading now, like she was hurt. He didn't want to hurt her anymore. "Do you even _know_ what you're saying?"

"Always." He giggled at her silliness.

"Lisbon? Lisbon!" He was suddenly serious and speaking in an urgent loud, hissing whisper. His hand took firm hold on hers and she let him pull her closer, not wanting him to use too much of his slight strength.

"I'm right here, Jane."

"I need to tell you something very important—something I've wanted to say for a long time." He raised his hand and clumsily motioned at her. "Closer. Come closer, dear." His whisper was much softer now, and she leaned over him to hear what he was saying. He inhaled deeply, marveling at how good she smelled, even in a hospital. He was starting to get really woozy.

"What is it, Jane?" She wasn't sure she wanted to hear this. That nurse had used a pretty big needle, and he was sounding less and less like his usual guarded self.

The hand holding hers slid up her arm and into her hair, pulling her face nearer to his, close enough to kiss, and she hoped he was too out of it to feel how her heart rate sped up.

"_I think the bearded lady ate my tie!"_

His hand went slack in her hair and pulled at it as it slid away and down to the bed, and he was out, dead to the world.

She laid her head down against him and chuckled into his chest, her laughter ending in a grateful sob.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Grace watched them over the next few days. Lisbon had ordered the team back to Sacramento, but she had convinced the boss that she should stay behind.

"I can take care of things here, Van Pelt. There's no reason for you to stay."

"I know you can take care of things," Grace had responded, careful not to lay it on too thick, "but who's going to take care of you? Run errands, bring you food and coffee when you want it, pick up a change of clothes so you don't have to leave the hospital for long?"

She had known that argument would tip the scales. She couldn't tell the truth, that she had seen how things were with them and knew that nothing came easy to people like them—like all of them. That she felt something bad was coming, like a storm just past the horizon, beyond her vision. They didn't know it yet, but they would need her, need her to look out for them.

When the whole Red John debacle had unfolded, she had felt something break inside of her. She was tired of being sweet, newbie Grace. It was an act she had adopted a long time ago, knowing it was what people preferred and more readily accepted. But that Grace had let them down and nearly gotten Lisbon killed. And after incidents of the last couple of years, especially those most recent, she had reached deep inside and drawn on her real self—the darker, colder, secret part of her that she had hidden away a long time ago.

Now, to convince Lisbon to let her stay behind, she had reassumed sweet Grace, all sunshine and easy affection, knowing it would bring Lisbon comfort and that her boss wouldn't want to quell what she saw as her return to normalcy in the wake of nearly losing Jane.

And so she watched. Grace knew that no two people were more aware than Lisbon and Jane of how elusive joy and peace and safety and love were in life, how easily everything one held dear could slip through one's fingers. So she looked on as the one resisted every urge to grasp what she most wanted and the other was desperate to lay hold on it. She was resolved to help them, give them what she could. All of them. They were more than co-workers or colleagues, more than friends, more than family, more than blood. They were her team, her people. And she would do everything in her power to keep them safe from the coming storm.

And that proved to be a good thing. Because after Jane fell off of a mountain and broke through the ice, after Lisbon took his hand in the hospital and forgave, after they all went back to the CBI knowing everything was changed but still not sure exactly where they stood, when Thanksgiving was gone and Christmas had been ushered in, against all odds, and from the grave . . .

Red John took another wife.

**END**


End file.
